Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that Hawai'i ranks 44th in the nation in volunteering.

That statistic was released this week in a nationwide report by the Corporation for National and Community Service, which looked at volunteering in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 2003 and 2005.

As the saying goes, charity begins at home. How many Hawai'i families are struggling just to keep their households minimally functional? Most of us, right?

So many families are affected by the scourge of substance abuse. So many households are writhing under the weight of gas prices, housing prices, grocery prices. So many people are having to sit in traffic for hours to get from home to work and back again.

And those are just the broad strokes.

There are a thousand subcategories of life stressors that fall upon the average overwrought resident of this alleged paradise.

Perhaps people in Hawai'i are too busy and stressed to have the time and energy to volunteer. That shouldn't be surprising given our scratch-and-struggle reality.

But it is a surprise. It absolutely goes against the way we see ourselves.

Above all, Hawai'i residents are warm and giving. Every missive from a local kid attending a Mainland college speaks to this theme. Every homesick hula conveys this thought. Every politician works it into campaign speeches. People in Hawai'i are the kindest in the world. Maybe just not in an organized, official way.

We're also pretty humble. Perhaps that humility worked against us in this survey.

Maybe people who go out of their way to make an extra pot of beef stew for their elderly neighbors every week wouldn't count that as volunteering.

Maybe the families who make the kids pick up rubbish every time they go to the beach just think it's "the right thing to do" rather than a volunteer project.

And it could be that the moms making truckloads of Spam musubi for the youth baseball game or the dads spending three days a week on a hot ball field would never peg themselves as "volunteers" because in their eyes, they're just doing what parents are supposed to do.

Among "official" volunteers, the ones who get invited to the mahalo luncheons, many are reluctant to take credit. Call them "heroes" or "angels" and they blanch. They don't like that kind of attention. Try writing stories about volunteerism. Most people turn you down, saying, "Me? Nah. Don't write about me. I just go because it's good fun. I not doing nothing special."

We might not have the time to put in regular hours, but we do what we can when we can. And we don't like to take credit for helping out, especially on surveys.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.